ETH News

Life needs sufficient phosphorus. However, the element is scarce, not only today but also at the time of the origin of life. So where was there sufficient phosphorus four billion years ago for life to emerge? A team of origin-of-life researchers has an answer.

Who were our earliest ancestors? The answer could lie in a special group of single-celled organisms with a cytoskeleton similar to that of complex organisms, such as animals and plants. ETH researchers made these findings in a new study.

For the first time, researchers have been able to observe how the pupils react during sleep over a period of several hours. A look under the eyelids showed them that more happens in the brain during sleep than was previously assumed.

ETH researchers have developed a new gene switch that can be activated using a commercially available nitroglycerine patch applied to the skin. One day, researchers want to use switches of this kind to trigger cell therapies for various metabolic diseases.

Successful test in breast cancer patients: the active agent digoxin, a cardiac medication, dissolves clusters of circulating breast cancer cells in the blood, thus reducing the risk of metastases formation.

Geophysicists at ETH Zurich are using models of the lower mantle to identify areas where earthquake waves behave differently than previously assumed. This indicates the presence of zones of rocks that are colder, or have a different composition, than the surrounding rocks. This finding challenges our current understanding of the Earth's plate tectonics – and presents the researchers with a major mystery.

Few courses of study at ETH Zurich have attracted quite as much attention as the new Master in Space Systems. Teachers and students strapped in for the programme’s launch this autumn.

Brienz has just been evacuated for the second time. The decision is based, among other things, on thousands of simulations that ETH professor Jordan Aaron has produced using a computer model he developed. In an interview with ETH News, he explains why this model was used.

ETH Zurich researchers have uncovered a serious side effect of using the CRISPR-Cas gene scissors. A molecule designed to make the process more efficient destroys parts of the genome.

Sleep problems have become a widespread issue. In a new popular science book and in an interview with ETH News, ETH sleep researcher Caroline Lustenberger describes the do’s (and don’ts) for when you can’t get to sleep.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have analysed down to the smallest detail the unusual arsenal of weapons that a predatory marine bacterium has at its disposal. Perhaps one day these weapons could also be put to use in medicine.

Using a new method, researchers at ETH Zurich can measure alterations in the social network of proteins in cells. This work lays the foundation for the development of new drugs to treat diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s.

Materials researchers have created a new composite material that combines two incompatible properties: stiff yet with a high damping capacity.

An organism as a tenant in another - in biology, this often works quite well. ETH researchers have now shed light on how such a partnership of a cell in a cell can establish.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have used a drug screening platform they developed to show that an antidepressant, currently on the market, kills tumour cells in the dreaded glioblastoma – at least in the cell-culture dish.

ETH researchers have modified certain bacteria with UV light so that they produce more cellulose. The basis for this is a new approach with which the researchers generate thousands of bacterial variants and select those that have developed into the most productive.

"We will rock you": ETH Zurich researchers are developing a gene switch that triggers insulin release in designer cells by playing certain rock and pop songs.